What Do Professionals Need to Know?
Criminal Justice
Overview of the Issue
Violence Against Women – What the Federal Law Says
- “Interstate domestic violence.” (18 USC Section 2261) prohibits traveling across a state line with the “intent to injure, harass, or intimidate a person’s spouse or intimate partner, and in the course of or as a result of such travel, intentionally commit(ing) a crime of violence and thereby caus(ing) bodily injury to such spouse or intimate partner.”
The section also prohibits causing “a spouse or intimate partner to cross a state line by force, coercion, duress, or fraud and, in the course or as a result of that conduct, intentionally commit(ing) a crime of violence and thereby caus(ing) bodily injury to the person’s spouse or intimate partner.”- “Interstate violation of a protection
order.” (18 USC Section 2262)
prohibits crossing a state line with the intent to violate a
valid protection order by “credible threats of violence,
repeated harassment, or bodily injury, or other acts prohibited
by the issuing state and then actually violating that
order.”
Causing a spouse or intimate partner “to cross a state line by force, coercion, duress, or fraud, and, in the course or as a result of that conduct, intentionally commit(ing) an act that injures the spouse or intimate partner in violation of a valid protection order issued by a State is likewise prohibited by Section 2262.”
The penalties for violating these sections are imprisonment up to life if the victim dies, up to 20 years if the victim suffers permanent disfigurement or life threatening bodily injury, up to 10 years if the offender uses a dangerous weapon or the victim suffers serious bodily injury, or up to five years in other cases.
- “Interstate enforcement of protective orders” (18 USC Section 2265) mandates that jurisdictions give “full faith and credit to protection orders from other jurisdictions as long as the issuing court had jurisdiction over the parties and matter, and reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard was given to the person against whom the order was issued. Cross or counter protection orders are not given full faith and credit if such an order was not sought or if the court “did not make specific findings that each party was entitled to such a order.”
- “Full Faith and Credit Provisions” (18 USC Section 2265) mandate that all states, territories, and tribal courts provide full faith and credit to orders of protection issued by courts of other states, territories, and tribes.
- “Interstate Stalking” (18 USC Section 2261A) states that whoever travels across a state line or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States with the intent to injure or harass another person, and in the course of, or as a result of, such travel places that person in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to that person or a member of that person’s immediate family shall be punished as provided in section 2261 of this title.
